Da Vinci's Study of Flight to Visit Smithsonian

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Leonardo da Vinci's early sketches of human flight some 400 years before the airplane's invention will make a rare visit to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

The museum announced Thursday that it will display da Vinci's “Codex on the Flight of Birds” between Sept. 13 and Oct. 22. The notebook from 1505 includes the famous artist's study of birds and his descriptions of how humans could one day fly.

The Biblioteca Reale in Turin, Italy, is loaning the document to the Smithsonian. It's been shown in the U.S. once before.

The historic document will be shown near Orville and Wilbur Wright's 1903 Flyer, the world's first successful powered aircraft. The museum says interactive stations will allow visitors to flip through the 18 pages of the codex.